Many students get confused with their choice of higher education degree and land into wrong course and drop out due to distress and anxiety. It is important that you take your time, consult with your parents, best friends, and others about your choice of degree and career path, so that, you have some good discussion and advice from your close friends and family members before you make up your mind.

As a prospective student, you should understand that it is not always important to get into a prestigious university with a course that you have no passion for, rather it is important to attend a university with a course that you love most and enjoy attending. It is all about you and your achievement. So chose the right course in a right university and lead the academic life you would enjoy. Remember, the seer purpose of higher education is to give you value in life with everything you do.

You can take the advantage of our experience team to help you with the Step-by-step admission process when you get stuck and cannot think ahead with so many choices available right before you.

The Albatross’s step-by-step university admission support

Step-1. Initial consultation

Have a free initial consultation with our admission consultants who can discuss your aptitudes in pursuing higher education in a particular subject area, availability of courses, and suitable universities that might offer you a place on your preferred course. Our consultants can also check your eligibility criteria and explore the possibility of a scholarships that you might be able to apply for.

Step-2. Making up your mind

Once you have identified your subject area and given a thought for several suitable courses that you would prefer to pursue your higher education, our consultants can then look for a suitable university that would offer you a course matching your choice for a degree and future career plans.

Also, at this stage based on your skills and abilities, you would get advice and suggestion for available scholarships application either at the university that is offering you the course or from other organizations.

Step3. Submit your credential to process the application

If you agree to carry on with your admission at the course and at the suggested university, the admission consultant would then process your application with the university. You would be aske to provide with the following documents and credentials.

• Filing the university admission application forms. Our designated admission consultant to you would guide you through to fill the application form accurately.
• Write your personal statement expressing your desire for the course and your career plan. If you need help, the designated consultant can guide you to write a convincing personal statement for admission on your preferred course.
• Your up-to-date CV (Curriculum Vitae). Our consultants can also guide you to prepare an attractive CV. If you need help with developing CV, please ask.
• Copy of your national ID (Passport is preferred).
• Proof of your English proficiency certificate (IELTS), TOEFL, or proof of your attendance to English courses. Each university has different requirements with test scores that varies from subject to subject. The consultant would explain these requirements to you at the first stage of your consultation. If you do not have the English proficiency certificate, you should make that clear to the consultant at the first stage and ask to advise either to take the test or other options that might be available.
• Copies of your secondary/higher secondary certificate (make sure these are translated in English) with a professional body. You should be prepared to provide the original copy of these certificates on demand from the universities you are seeking admission from.
• Bank statements showing sufficient funds to cover your academic session in the UK. These funds should include your tuition as well as living expenses in the UK. Different city has different criteria of fund for tuition and accommodation. Make sure you ask about this during your initial consultation with the admission consultant.

Step-4. Process of application for admission

After you have provided all the required credentials (qualifications) to the designated admission consultant, he or she would then start the process of your application with the universities on your preferred list. This process might take from 2 weeks to 4 weeks period depending on the university.

• Admission test

Almost every university in the UK would ask prospective international students either to provide evidence of attending Numeracy, English course in their secondary level education or to sit for a numeracy, English level test (unless they are exempt to do so).

Numeracy test: many universities expect applicants to sit for numeracy and math tests. It very much depends on which subject you are seeking admission to. If you are looking for admission in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and Math) related subjects, then the test is a must take.

You might also be asked to sit for math and English test depending your academic qualifications from the secondary and higher secondary level. Some universities have a policy of exemption of math or numeracy test if you can provide evidence of reading math in your secondary level. Please ask your designated consultant if you would like to ask for an exemption based on your attendance on math subject at the secondary level.

English proficiency test: some students especially many mature students (home) seek admission on undergraduate courses based on their work experiences in managerial and supervisory level. These students without English proficiency certificate are often aske to sit for English test similar to the IELTS test. And to secure a place on a preferred course, a student must score up to an expected level on the English test.

Our expert consultants can help you to prepare for university English test if you attend a few English test session with us. The success rate of our preparatory classes is very high. Almost 80 % of our student have successfully made it to their course after attending few sessions with us last year. So, get in touch wit us to book your place and learn English to prepare yourself for the admission test.

• Admission interview

Admission interview is an integral part of university admission process. Practically every universities would conduct an admission interview with admission seekers before they are offered a place on a course. It important that you prepare yourself for the admission interview.

During the interview, the admission offer will ask you some basic questions regarding the subject area that you are interested to pursue a dredge on, the course that you have chosen, your reason for selecting the particular course at the university, your aspiration and future career plans upon completion of the degree.

You should not be nervous about the admission interview. Our designated consultant can guide you to be prepared for the interview while giving you advice, information on types of questions that admission officers might ask regarding your admission to a particular course and subject area. They can also run a mock interview with you to boost your confident and make yourself fully prepared for the interview.

• Process of the admission Interview/test.

Some university conduct physical interview while inviting students to visit the campus. Other carry out interview with just telephone calls. For international students, it can be a video call or direct phone calls from the university admission team with the pre-arranged time and date for the interview.

For admission test, different university follows differ process. Some universities use external organisations to conduct the test. In such case after your application is submitted, the external organisation will get in touch with you to organise the test while advising you the process, time, and date for the test. However, most of the university conduct the test directly with the student visa online or inviting them on the campus.

If you will have to sit for a test, you will be advised the process by your university and your admission consultant in good time. So do not panic about it.

Step-5. Offer of admission

After the admission interview, some universities (if everything is okey) can make an offer/reject the application within a week. However, most of the universities take at least two to four weeks of standard period to make a decision. So be mindful, that admission process can run longer.

At this stage, the designated admission consultant would process your application with number of universities for several similar courses. It is because, depending on your academic merit and availability of place on the course, university would decide your application on the course that you would apply as your first choice.  If you are accepted for your fist choice, the consultant would invite you to complete Step 6(acceptance of offer) and continue with other steps.

However, you may not be accepted on your first preferred course by the particular university. If this happens, the consultant will try to talk to the university and endeavour to get you onto the university as it is your first choice. If the consultant’s effort becomes unsuccessful, you would be given other choices for admission with slight change of the plan for the course as mentioned above. Once you have made some compromise based on the situation explained above and accept the second or third offer for admission on a particular course, the admission consultant would guide you to the next step to accept the offer.

If you have been accepted by the university, you would be made an offer of admission. This is call admission offer. It comes in two categories such as a conditional offer of admission and an unconditional offer of admission for a particular course.

• Conditional offer of a place

A conditional offer in made to students who need to fulfil some additional requirements before accelerating it to an unconditional offer. These conditions vary students to students. However, some of the common conditions of an offer can be that university might ask you to complete your English language test (if you have not done so during the application process) or the University might ask you to sit for an English test again to get the require grade on a particular component of your English test to make you eligible for admission at the course you have applied for. For example, in your IELTS test that you have submitted as evidence of your English proficiency, your overall score is 6. But on the writing component you only scored 4.5 which is too low to offer you a place on the course. In such case the university would make you a conditional offer asking you to sit for IELTS exam again and get the benchmarked score (let us say 5.5) on the writing component and accelerate the conditional offer to an unconditional on.

If you fail to fulfil your attached condition on your offer letter, it is unlikely that you would get access to the course. Your designated admission consultant would guide your through to fulfill your condition if you are made a conditional offer.

• Unconditional offer of a place

In such case, there are no condition attached to the offer letter and student can get to the next stage of admission process which is the acceptance or rejection of the offer.

• Important information regarding your offer letter

Your offer letter either it is a conditional or an unconditional would have information of the course you would be attending, annual fees the university is charging for your yearly tuition, the course start and end dates, teaching campus or building, enrolment process, and date by which you must accept or reject the offer or fulfil the condition of offer before it become invalid.

Your designated admission consultant would guide you through this process, however, you should ask questions regarding your offer letter and its attached conditions so that the admission consultant can help you with your concerns.

Step-6. Acceptance/rejection of the offer of a place

Once an offer of place is made on a particular course. You must accept or reject the offer. Some time students get offer from more than one university and they cannot make up their mind of which course or university they should attend. Please make sure that you consult with your designated admission consultant or your family members and make the right choice and accept or reject the offer in good time. In case you reject certain university place, you must notify your rejection of offer to the course so that the university can offer that place to other students waiting to get into the course. If you do not do that, you might limit chances of other students to access to higher education on the session.

If you are made an offer of a place on a particular course, you would be guided to move to next stage which is (step 7) to continue with the other admission process.

Step-7. Payment of tuition fees

If you are international students, depending on the university you are attending for a course you would need to make some initial payments of fees. Your designated consultant can help you out to make the mandatory payments to the university. Some university ask for this payment as immigration deposit whereas other universities ask to pay at least half or quarter of the 1^st year’s tuition fees.

If you are a home student, your admission consultant would guide you to apply for Student finance for both tuition fee and maintenance (if you prefer) loan. You should apply for student finance as soon as you accept your offer of a place at the university. It is because, the process of student finance can take longer, and late application can cause delay in payments for tuition and maintenance. The sooner is better.

Step-8. Application for an entry clearance

If you are international student with an unconditional place of offer a course or a conditional offer that does not prevent you to apply for entry clearance, will need to apply for your visa to the UK immediately. It is because the visa processing can take longer which id delayed might affect your attendance to the course. Please visit click here to get some more information regarding the entry clearance visa in the UK.

Our expert immigration advisers can guide your through the application process for entry clearance application in the UK. If you need such expert guidance and advice, please contact us. It is very important that you seek professional advice in applying for entry clearance in the UK, so that you do not get refused and miss your chances to start the academic session in time.

Step-9. Arrival to the UK

Once you have been issued with the student visa by the British High commission to enter in the UK as student, you should immediately get in touch with us to organise your arrival in the UK. This arrangement includes finding you a temporary accommodation, receiving you from the airport, providing you a food parcel with essential items and introduce you with the local area for minor shopping and relaxation until you start your course and move to a permanent accommodation.

At this stage, our team would advise you about the transport, cost of accommodation, opening bank accounts, local recreational facilities, university campuses and other services that you would need to make yourself comfortable in a foreign environment. You can ask for any other help that you might need.

Step-10. Finding accommodation in the UK

If you are not staying in a commercial hostel or with a relative upon your arrival, we can (at your request) help you to find a suitable and reasonable place to stay. If you would like us to make a necessary accommodation arrangement, it is important that your request such support right after you have received your entry clearance so that we have enough time to look for a place for you.

Also if you would like us to book you an accommodation with available commercial student accommodation providers in the UK, we can also organise that for you. So, please get in touch with us to help you with all the support available to us in order to make your academic journey in the UK a very comfortable and enjoyable one.

Step-11. Enrolment

If you are home student, after you have accepted your offer, you will receive a link from the university to enroll on the course with instructions on for it. If you still need help, you can either visit us in our office to guide your through the enrollment process or call us to guide you over the phone to complete the enrollment.

If you are international student, you can also enroll online or visit us in our office to guide you through the process. We can also take you to the university campus and give you a little tour around the campus and its surroundings. So, once you are in the UK please get in touch with us.